I’ve had a few requests for the text of my “Mummer’s Poem,” which appeared on the radio New Year’s Eve.

When Peter Crimmins interviewed me for the December 26th News Works Tonight segment “The Sonnet Makes a Small Comeback,” he persuaded me to read my unpublished poem “Broad and Washington,” which I began writing after standing on that corner to watch the Mummers New Years Day 2013. Although it wasn’t used in the first program, the poem was broadcast on WHYY/NPR 90.7FM as part of the News Works Tonight New Year’s program the evening of December 31, 2013. Here’s the poem. Feel free to share.

“Broad and Washington” by Ernest Hilbert

New Year’s Day, Mummers

An awkward spin unbends into a strut
As sequined brawlers grin, gavotte, and stray,
Ominous jesters whose frolic survives
Obscure origins. Bejeweled banjos jut
And swipe in rude chevrons of bawdy play,
Partly primitive but also casually contrived.
Confetti clings like pollen to avenues
Governed by this throng—whose skits and prances
Proclaim them preservers of contrary motion:
Gowned brigades of misrule, bright mob that skews
Its way through regally drunken dances,
Risen from an empire sunk in the ocean
To foam over the city, stir chaotic chords,
Adored and mad, our disorderers and lords.

Photograph by Ernest Hilbert, January 1, 2014.